LETTER TO THE HONORABLE LIONEL OLMER FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R001500080033-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2007
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: June 8, 1984
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2007/08/26: CIA-RDP88B00443RO01500080033-1
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The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington. D. C. 20505
Dear Lionel,
In case you haven't seen it, here is the
Bart Rowen article we discussed yesterday.
Yours,
Wil am J. Casey
The Honorable Lionel Olmer
Under Secretary for
International Trade
Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C. 20230
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EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PARIS
May 25, 1984
Dear Bart,
I was pleased to see that you decided to write
on the subject I raised with you when you were here
at the OECD. The Herald Tribune carried the piece
and I have already heard favorable comment in French
intellectual circles and in the American community.
The French fascination with the United States
economic recovery is a fact. I would sorely like to
take credit for brainwashing the various potentates
who count, but I am afraid it is due to the
conjuncture of the failure of socialist policies on
the one hand and the scope of our recovery on the
other hand; the juxtaposition is dramatic.
I will be writing and talking more on this
subject, and perhaps we can get together when I am
in Washington in early and late August.
Best regards,
Sincerely,
Evan G. Galbraith
Ambassador
Mr. Hobart Rowen
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20071
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In Europe:
P P ARIS - The big story in Europe
is not simply that the Common
Market countries are light-years be-
hind American and Japanese tech-
nology, but that Europeans have be-
gun to develop new respect for the
American entreprenurial spirit, of
which they were once contemptuous.
Europe s regulated, bureaucratic
societies now have a grudging admi-
ration for the more ndventursome,
ve free market system. So-
spticated Europeans ascribe much
of their lagging economic perfor-
mina to this difference in approach.
An underlying problem has been
the time, energy and money that the
European Community has poured
into protecting agriculture. Industry
has played second fiddle. Nationalist
pride and primitive: capital markets
keep European industnal.companies
from combining forces to compete
with the IBMs and Sonys.
The big shock for Europe this past
yar has been the sharp U.S. recovery
from reces 'on in the face of record
real interest rates. This was totally
unexpected It is generally attributed
to an unleashing of the American
economy from government regula-
tion, and to American labor's willing-
ness to join in the process. Many
?
May 24, 1984
Looking Hard at American Enterprise
By Hobart Rowen created 25 million jobs; in Europe the
__.._ figure is minus 3 million.
rather than German or Most of the new American jobs
Europeans today sound like Republl
forAmerican
.
~
can National Committee clones. Dutch, partners. "They want trans- have been in services, including high.
dent John Vinocur has pointed out,
the traditional anti-Americanism of
the French intellectual has flip-
flopped. The French, seeing the franc
plunge in value while the dollar soars,
have soured on F.rangois Mitterrand
and socialism, and are beginning to
sound downright pro-American.
Mr. Mitterrand was stunned by his
recent trip to the United States,
where he saw not only the htgL tech
outpourings of Silicon Valley, but for
the rust time understood the signifi-
cance of cooperation between the
business world and academia. The
Bonn government, too, is beginning
to catch on to this all-important nex-
us between the private corporation
and campus research.
For the near future, European
businessmen see themselves havily
dependent on the American "engine
of growth." They doubt that there is
any independent force left in Europe
that will nurture their skimpier recov-
ery once the U.S. boom tapers off.
Today the more daring European
companies in Italy and France look
Atlantic, not European, connec- mcn, and most nave ban created by
lions," a diplomat says. new, small companies. But in Europe,
The country that seems to have - businessmen talk of the "exit cost"
more of the entrepreneurial spirit The statutory obligations for pen-
than any other is Italy. Although Sons, severance pay and other costs
Frenchmen, Germans and English. of getting out of business discourage
men have always looked down their European entrepreneurs from start-
noses at their Italian neighbors, Italy in$ UP in the first place. By contrast,
boasts a thriving economy, having new interpretations of the U .S. bank-
moved from a negative 3- to 4-per- napmy laws provide a cheap way of
cent rate of growth in 1983 to a post- exiting from business obligations -a
tive 2 or 3 percent this year. new management tool tantamount to
The disoarning businessman in Eu- a license for union-busting.
rope today makes no attempt to dis- "ism" and -the con-
guise his awe at America's economic trasts between American progress
success under Ronald Reagan. Some and European foot-dragging can be
Americans worry, as they should, at exaggerated But for the first time in
the maldistribution of the benefits of. the 23 years I have been coming to
Reaganomics, which are eoncentrat- Europe as a reporter, I hear a cam-
ad in the middle- and tipper income . Iron refrain that union work rules .
brackets. But Europe would be happy will have to become more flexible,
with a trickle-down result. and that welfare systems must be cut
Officials and private citizens with back And if manufacturing compa-
whom 1 talked here and in Rome are max cannot lick the United States
openly envious of the strength of and Japan, then they will have to join
America, the power of the almighty thy, no's great the resulting jolt
dollar and especially the ability of the to what meager unity remains in the
American economy to generate new European Community.
jobs. In the past 10 years America has The Washington Post.
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